The Oak and the Ash
by Rowyne
Summary: It didn't take them long to realize that some ghosts haunt you forever.


_Hello there! This story takes place after season three ended. What happened in the six or seven months that led up to season four. It will consist of six chapters in total._

* * *

A red leaf landed on Carol's palm.

She looked at the trees, their leaves turning the warm colors of autumn. The fallen ones danced in the wind that made her coat tails flicker.

On mornings like this, Carol awoke before any of the others. She'd stand outside, listened to the wind rattle the leaves on the trees. Each morning, as she watched the sun float into the sky and light the day, she heard the distant cry of a mockingbird, mimicking a sad song in its eerie voice. It was a short, somber melody – Carol guessed it was some sort of lullaby – but she loved listening to it. It was beautiful in its melancholy tone.

On this day, as she heard it echo through the forest, she wondered who had been singing to the mockingbird all this time. Or maybe someone only sang to it once, a long time ago – perhaps before all this – and the songbird just kept on repeating it, like a broken record.

When the mockingbird stopped singing, and the dead's groans filled the air, Carol decided to go back inside and get a start on breakfast. People would be waking soon enough, and they would be hungry.

She scrounged around in the prison for a good ten minutes searching for a decent meal to feed the people, until she came across some rolled oats and stale bread. She boiled some water and made oatmeal out of the oats. Then she held the pieces of bread over a flame until they were crispy enough to call toast. It would have to do for now.

* * *

The prison came alive with voices.

Carol realized she'd finished breakfast just in time, because a crowd of people from D block were pouring out of the doors.

She handed out bowls of steaming oatmeal and slices of charred bread. There was hardly enough to feed all of them, and none left over for her.

But a group was going on a supply run later today. And that was good. Food was getting so scarce; they barely got by yesterday with only two meals. And Rick was bringing in new people almost every day. Broken families, widows, orphans. Anyone in need of help came to their prison.

The newcomers helped out enough, but it was becoming very difficult to feed so many of them. Rick knew that. But he insisted that they had a safe haven, and people living in the woods – who were all too vulnerable –needed that more than anything.

After they had eaten their breakfast, the people scattered across the yard to go about their daily chores.

Carol was letting the empty bowls soak in hot water, when she heard footfalls heading her way.

She looked up to see Daryl holding a bowl, with remnants of oatmeal still in it, and a half slice of bread.

Carol flashed him a small, tight-lipped smile when he placed it in front of her.

He nodded, once, then turned and walked to catch up with Rick, who was on his way to the watchtower.

So she wouldn't be _completely_ starving, today, anyway.

* * *

Daryl sat on a sunken log in a shadowy part of the forest, where the sunlight struggled to filter through the thick curtain of tree branches.

He watched a squirrel skulk across the bed of dead leaves, searching for something to eat. Daryl raised his bow and aimed for the squirrel's eye. He released the string, and let the arrow glide through the air, piercing through the little animal's eyeball. An easy target.

A scrawny rabbit, three young squirrels, and a wild turkey. It was all Daryl found after probably four hours in the woods.

He'd stayed out hoping to find a deer, a fox, a wild dog, _something._

But it seemed the forest creatures somehow knew he was coming, and found a hiding place.

As he walked, Daryl noticed the footprints on the muddy ground. Not animal, but human. _Walkers._

He followed the trail of prints to a swamp. And there, standing in the muddy waters, half hidden by a cloak of curtain-like stuff hanging from a tree – was a little girl. Her blue party was dress tattered and caked with dirt and blood, and her mangled blonde hair nearly suppressed a large, bloody gash in her shoulder. But Daryl could see the blood running down her back from what could only be a bite wound, and knew she was already dead.

She couldn't have been much older than ten when she died. The bite mark was fresh, too.

She was thin and bony, with sickly pale arms and legs.

She had her back turned to Daryl, but once she heard a dead leaf shatter under his boot, she spun around.

She snarled when she saw her prey, and began limping in his direction.

It was hard for her to move, as she was missing half of her left ankle, and left a trail of blood behind her as she made her way to Daryl.

The sun sparkled off the blood from her wounds, the trail of red liquid, and something glossy on her neck, which, Daryl came to realize, was a necklace.

The sunlight glinted off the sliver chain and heart-shaped locket as the dead girl staggered closer.

Daryl took a moment to look her over. A strand of her blood-streaked, long blonde hair was tied in a pink ribbon. Her eyes were glassy and grey. She had ornamental shoes on that were once white, and somehow matched her blue dress.

Daryl looked at her scrawny legs, then at her gaunt little arms. The poor kid was so undernourished, before she even died.

He stopped thinking about it and raised his crossbow.

The dead girl was only a few feet away from him. He knew he had to shoot. Now.

A crow screeched from some faraway place. A woodpecker drilled into a lean pine. A squirrel leaped from the high branches of the trees.

When Daryl pulled the string back, he didn't hear those sounds anymore. He heard complete silence.

He aimed the arrow at the middle of the dead girl's forehead, and tried not to look in her eyes as he released the string. He soon discovered that was impossible; the last he saw of the girl as a walker was her foggy, dead eyes.

Then he ended it.

The little girl wasn't alive. The little girl wasn't a walker. The little girl was dead.

She collapsed at Daryl's feet, falling gracefully, wilting like a flower.

Her fingertips brushed across the toes of his boots, causing him to take a step back.

After staring at the crumpled body for a long while, Daryl knelt down beside it. He gently placed his hands on the dead girl – one on her shoulder, one on her side – and rolled her onto her back. Then he drew the arrow from her skull, and watched a trail of bright red blood leave the wound, trickle down her forehead, down the crook of her nose, and her cheek.

When his gaze flickered to the gnarled bite mark in her shoulder, he noticed something strange.

Three little pebble-like things wedged into the flesh.

Using his three middle fingers, Daryl gently wiped some blood away to get a better look.

The things were buried pretty deep. It was still hard to make out what they were.

So Daryl heedfully gripped one of the pebble-like things between his thumb and index finger, and tugged on it.

Finally, he got it to slip out of the wound. He held it up to meet the light, and in the instant before it did, he realized what it was.

A tooth.

The walker must have bit the girl so hard, that three of its teeth came out in the process.

"_Son of a bitch,"_ Daryl muttered.

He let the tooth fall to the ground and land on a leaf that was as red as blood.

Then he tried to push the image a that little girl - alive, running for her life, from a cluster of the dead, tripping on something that was hidden by leaves, not being able to move as the dead feasted on her flesh - out of his mind.

He turned his attention to the necklace.

Carefully, as if he were afraid to wake her, Daryl snaked a hand around the dead girl's neck, fiddling with the metal clasp of her necklace.

When he got it undone, he slipped the silver chain off her neck, and held it up.

The silver heart fit perfectly into Daryl's palm, and had another smaller heart engraved in the center. And, inside that, the initials S.J were carved in intricate, cursive letters.

Daryl wanted to open it, then. But he assumed it was locked, and didn't want to break it open with a rock, as much as he didn't want to feel around in the dead girl's dress pocket for a key that might not even be there.  
So he set the locket on a bed of moss nearby and attempted to pry it open with his fingers.

To his surprise, the heart opened easily.

Inside, there was one photograph. It was of little girl, alive, smiling. She was still very thin, but not like she was now. That let the haunting thought that she could have been out here – in the woods, alone, for days, maybe even weeks – enter Daryl's mind. He drove it away before it unsettled him too much.

In the picture, the girl's eyes were a vibrant, deep, ocean blue - the color her dress might have been before it was disguised in all that blood.

She was wearing a faded jean jacket and beige slacks. From that, Daryl could guess it was fall at the time the picture was taken. And the girl looked a bit younger, there. Seven or eight, maybe.

There was a good chance the picture was taken on this day, two or three years ago. The day of her death. And she had no idea about any of this, then.

Neither did the man standing next to her, who had to be her father.

His arm was slung around the girl's shoulders, and a wide grin was frozen on his face.

It was then that Daryl realized this girl had a good relationship with her father.

In the picture, their smiles were genuine. You couldn't fake expressions like that.

This girl had a father who loved her very much. Perhaps he'd tried to find her. Perhaps he was still looking.

He was out there now - desperately searching for his daughter. Calling her name, but being answered only by the wind.

Maybe soon he'd stumble upon his daughter's dead body. Maybe he'd take it upon himself to join her. And then they'd be together again. In a place that wasn't here. And maybe they could be happy, again. Like in the picture.

Maybe.

Daryl couldn't bear to look at the picture for another second. He scooped the locket up in his hand, and pressed the front piece of the silver heart to the second piece, sealing up the picture.

* * *

Rick had gathered up a handful of people to go on a run.

Himself, Glenn, Daryl, and Carol.

She had volunteered herself to go. Wanted to get out of the prison for a while.

As soon as Daryl got back from his hunting trip, they would leave.

There was a little town a couple miles from the prison. They'd try to find some food there. But there was no guarantee that they would.

So Carol was holding onto the shard of hope that Daryl had found something while he was hunting. There was still that chance.

* * *

Mist swelled over the tree trunks and bushes, covering the ground in a thick blanket.

Daryl hadn't gotten very far away from the swamp where he'd found the little dead girl, when something caught his eye.

A flash of pink in the distance.

He turned and saw a pink ribbon dangling from the spindly finger of a tree branch.

The dead girl was here.

When she was alive. When she was running from the dead. And that branch had reached out like a hand, being puppet mastered by the wind, and grabbed the girl's ribbon from her blonde hair.

It had been here ever since.

And as Daryl got closer, he noticed that there was no blood on it.

He was about to touch it when he heard the footfalls behind him.

* * *

Carol got together an assembly of weapons.

A machete and a hatchet. T-Dog's shotgun. She had retrieved it after he died. Kept it with her since.

Then she found her knife. If she hadn't have had with her that day, she might have died.

Something like that could easily happen again, so Carol placed the knife in a slot in her belt.

"You won't be needing all these," a voice said from behind her.

Carol turned to see Rick standing in the door frame.

"Just the gun," he concluded, before departing from the room.

Carol did as Rick told her and put the machete and ax aside. She put the gun in its holster, got to her feet, and remembered she still had her knife in her belt.

She placed a hand on the wooden handle of the knife. Held it there, for a moment, and then left the room. Left the knife in her belt.

* * *

Daryl's eyes met the walker's.

Immediately, he felt his stomach flip. What he saw sickened him

The walker was a man. He had sandy brown hair crust with dried blood, and he wore a white flannel shirt and dark jeans.

The crook of his neck was smeared with dark, crimson blood. That was where this man had been bitten, Daryl knew.

But none of that was what made him sick.

It was that he knew the walker.

He'd never met him, really. But he'd seen a picture of him.

It was the dead girl's father.

And when he opened his mouth to growl at Daryl, blood spilled out of the three gaps where he was missing his teeth.

* * *

"He should be back anytime, now," Rick stated, looking at Glenn.

"Yeah, but we don't know if he will," Glenn said.

Rick nodded slowly. "What do you think we should do, then?"

"Wait until tomorrow. We could leave at dawn."

"Ok," Rick agreed. "And if he doesn't come back?"

"Ever?"

Rick looked at the ground.

"He wouldn't do that, would he?" Glenn asked.

"We can't be too sure of anything," Rick replied.

"Yeah, but it's Daryl," Glenn insisted. "He wouldn't do something like that, right? He wouldn't just abandon us…would he?"

Rick was silent for a long moment before he finally spoke. The words came out in a quiet, somber tone.

"I don't know."

* * *

Her father had bitten her.

That bite had killed her. Daryl's arrow had just finished off whatever was left.

But the walker in front of him - the dead man that used to be a father - _he_ had bitten his little girl. _He _had killed her. And she ran to that swamp. But she might as well have died in that moment, because the only place she could run to, then, was her grave. And her grave just so happened to be a swamp.

Daryl couldn't help but feel like he was a part of their story. It was almost as if it was some kind of fairy tale.

The man had died, then came back and bit his helpless daughter – who couldn't bring herself to fight off her own father, so she took the bite instead.

Then she stumbled across the swamp, and there she died and came back. That was when Daryl found her.

And he was there to put an arrow through her head.

But the story wasn't over just yet.

* * *

Carol watched as a brightly colored butterfly landed between two bars on her cell window.

She studied its red, paper-thin wings. They were the color of the leaves on the trees.

The butterfly's wings flickered as it rose above the window ledge. It collided with the glass of the window a couple times, before Carol got off her bunk and approached it.

The butterfly hovered in the air, eyes facing Carol's. It was as if the creature was looking at her.

But the moment was brief, and the butterfly glided out of the cell.

Part of her wanted to follow it.

* * *

The dead girl's father lunged at Daryl.

In the twinkling of an eye, he had an arrow loaded and aimed at the walker.

He did it quick. Finished the story right then by embedding an arrow in the dead man's head.

This time, Daryl didn't approach the corpse.

He left it there, with an arrow poking out of its skull.

Soon, the man's flesh would rot away. His clothes would dissolve into the dirt, and all that would be left of him was a pile of old bones. Just like his little girl.

That was the end of the story. The man and his daughter were dead. But they were still here. They were in the wind that rustled the leaves on the trees, drafted through the tall grass, and slanted the flowers in the meadows.

* * *

Sophia loved butterflies.

When she was alive, the little girl would chase them around the backyard for hours. That was how she loved to spend bright summer mornings, when the weather was nice and her father was still asleep.

Carol would watch her from the front porch. It was a fragment of joy, of peace, they got. It came around rarely – like a rainbow – but it was beautiful. And Carol loved those mornings. Loved watching her daughter play with the butterflies.

So she thought of her daughter as she followed the butterfly - with its dazzling, bright wings - down the dark, grey hall.

He was back by sunset.

Rick was there to open the gates.

Once he saw the look in Daryl's eyes, he spoke up.

"We were thinking of going on a run when you got back. Would it be better if we moved it to tomorrow?"

"Might be best," Daryl replied. "It's gettin' dark. Don't wanna get stuck someplace overnight."

Rick nodded. "I'll tell the others."

Daryl watched him go, until there was nothing left to watch. Then he followed, hoping to go to his cell, and sit there, alone.

He decided to keep the story he was somehow a part of to himself. He didn't want to talk about the little dead girl, or her father. Or the locket, or the picture.

It was just a memory, now. And it would fade away with time.

* * *

The butterfly led her to a door.

If Carol opened the door, then the butterfly could leave the prison and flutter into the woods. There it would be free.

So, taking one more look at the butterfly - trying to memorize its beauty - she opened the door.

The butterfly lingered in the air beside Carol. It was as if the creature was contemplating whether or not to go out there, with the dead.

But then, its choice became clear. The butterfly soared through the door frame, gliding along the currents of the wind. Slipping past the dead, unnoticed, and reaching the treeline.

Carol watched it disappear into the shadows, knowing she'd never see it again.


End file.
